Blood Magic: The Gold Chronicles Book 5
by CJ Moliere
Summary: Rumplestiltskin's quest to find members of his family in this land takes him and Belle to Venice where his distant cousin Zelena Strogoff D'Amato asks for his help to free her husband who is being held prisoner in the Ural Mountains of Russia by the dark witch Baba Yaga. The fifth book in the Gold Chronicles AU series! Takes place 8 years after The Heart of Everything.


**Author's Notes: I am officially introducing Zelena into the Gold Chronicles with this story; however I am tossing out most of her backstory from the show. She will **_**not **_**be evil, she is **_**not**_** the Wicked Witch of the West nor is she related to Regina, but she **_**is **_**related to Rumple and **_**will**_** become his apprentice. I hope you enjoy this new take on Zelena as well as my twist on another legendary character, Baba Yaga who is the true villain of this story. **

Ural Mountains

Siberia, Russia

Two months prior to the sixtieth birthday of Rumplestiltskin Strogoff Gold, a new chapter appeared in the Once Upon a Time book and like the other fairy tales within it, this one differed from how they were told in the Land Without Magic, as he and his fellow fairy tale friends and relatives called our world. Created years ago by Rumple himself, the storybook's main purpose had been to make the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming break a curse on all of them and help them recover their memories in the Enchanted Forest. She'd done so but it was only after Rumple broke his dagger curse that new stories began to appear, all of them answering questions about Rumplestiltskin's own past and help him find family members he was not aware he had. He now knew his family had its origins in this world and some of them were magically inclined. On his father's side he was Scots-Irish, a member of the McDermott Clan and one of them found a portal into the Enchanted Forest. His mother's side was Russian and their surname was Strogoff and one of them found a portal into Oz, though magic was stronger in his mother's bloodline.

His first Russian ancestor was known in this world as Ivan Strogoff. Ivan was a powerful sorcerer in the court of Ivan the Terrible along with his apprentice and lover, Irina Fedorova. Ivan was a kind hearted man who only wanted to use his gift to help others while Irina only wanted to learn how to use magic to help herself. The two had a falling out and Irina was accused of using her powers to murder her rivals in the Russian court. She was to be burned at the stake only she escaped and vowed revenge against her lover and his family. He, his sister Ekaterina and her daughter Mischa were all that was left of his family. He sent his precious sister to Italy to hide her among friends there, bound their magic and cast a protection spell over them so that his former apprentice could not locate them and began to learn more about light and dark magic so that he could find a way to defeat her. Through his studies he learned how to create a talisman that would remove the magic of another sorcerer temporarily or permanently if placed over the victim's heart and the talisman could only be used by those of his bloodline.

Ivan began a long and perilous journey into the Ural Mountains to defeat Irina but before he could reach the castle the dark sorceress made her home, his talisman opened a portal and he fell through it into a world known as Oz and met and fell in love with its goddess, Lurline. She gave him the name Aramon, which in her language meant 'wise man'.

Irina's devotion to the dark arts began to take its toll on her physical appearance. She was no longer a great beauty and required the souls of the young to maintain the glamour she used to keep herself as young and beautiful as she once was. Over the centuries many wandered into her lair but none survived. Soon word spread throughout the country about an old witch named Baba Yaga who captured and killed the young, devouring their flesh to restore her lost youth and people dared not venture into the part of the Ural Mountains where she made her home in fear of being captured by her and eaten. By taking the life forces of the innocent, Baba Yaga had discovered the key to immortality but her ultimate goal was to find and exterminate the surviving members of the Strogoff family and destroy the talisman that could destroy her. For six hundred years she waited impatiently for one of them to return to the motherland.

Baba Yaga traced the current Strogoff descendant to Moscow, a young woman named Zelena Strogoff D'Amato, descended from Ivan's sister Ekaterina. The girl was in Moscow researching her family's history along with her husband Angelo. She could have killed the girl outright but decided to make her suffer first by taking the thing she loved most; her husband. She would use the husband as a bargaining chip. Unless the girl found the talisman and brought it to her, she would never her precious Angelo again.

Venice, Italy

_"Zelena...Zelena!" _

Zelena Strogoff D'Amato sat up in bed, her body trembling as it did every night since the day her husband disappeared and she relived that horrible day over and over in her nightmares. She'd been warned from the day she was born that sooner or later her family's mortal enemy would rise again and seek her vengeance against them and the only weapon they could use to destroy her could no longer be found in this world. It, like its creator was now in another land that she had no way of travelling to. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. She and Angelo only been married a month when she struck. She'd been raised in Italy, her parents having fled Russia in the years before the collapse of Communism and the Berlin Wall. She'd always been curious about her native country and longed to return only her parents cautioned her it was too dangerous. At first she thought it was because they feared the wrath of the Communist government. Now she knew the real reason. They fled from _her..._ the dark witch whose name they couldn't even bear to mention.

She put on her robe and walked over to her desk, turning on her laptop. She'd tried locating the portal Ivan Strogoff fell through centuries ago without success and she had no magical abilities to create one. Her only hope now was that one of his descendants came back through the portal or another one and had the talisman with them. She descended from the line of Ivan's beloved sister, Ekaterina, also a sorceress though her powers were not as strong as her brother's and the rumor in the family was that the powers of future generations were bound to protect them from the dark witch but somehow she'd learned of Zelena's existence and instead of attacking her directly, she went after the one person she loved the most, Angelo.

She logged onto the Ancestry website and entered her profile page to check to see if anyone had attempted to contact her claiming to be a relation of hers. She'd gotten a few emails, mostly from crackpots and quickly sent them to her trash folder. Then she spotted an email address that caught her attention. RStrogoffGold . She opened the email and read the message.

Signora D'Amato,

For several years I have been trying to locate any descendants of Ivan Strogoff around the world. I am fairly new to computers but a cousin of mine suggested I try entering our information into this site's database and I was a bit surprised to see you've added some information that I was not aware of. If you are descended from Ivan's sister Ekaterina then you are a cousin of mine and I would like to speak more to you if you are so inclined.

Rumplestiltskin Strogoff Gold

Once she finished reading she debated sending this email to the trash as well because the man had given his first name as one belonging to a fairy tale character. Then she pulled up the website name from his email address and learned that Rumplestiltskin was indeed his first name and he was an antiquities dealer in a small town in Maine and Juno Beach, Florida. She also searched Facebook and discovered he had his own page there but his profile was locked which made her all the more curious. She closed out Facebook and opened her email program to compose a reply to his message.

Signor Gold,

I am indeed descended from Ekaterina Strogoff and spent my early childhood in Russia and now reside in Italy. I have no other family left other than my husband so you can imagine how pleased I was to discover there are still members of our family in the world that I can communicate with. If you would like to get in touch with me over the phone, there is a link on my website that includes my office number. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Zelena Strogoff D'Amato

She sent the message on, praying that this Rumplestiltskin was the person she needed to help her defeat the dark witch and save her husband.


End file.
